Senate GOP introduces ban on gender-based abortion

Senate GOP introduces ban on gender-based abortion

DENVER — Among a slew of new bills introduced in the state senate Wednesday is a measure from senate Republicans that seeks to ban abortion for purposes of gender selection.

The legislation, which is sponsored by 11 of the 15 Republicans in the senate, defines sex-selection abortion as one “undertaken for purposes of eliminating an unborn child of an undesired sex.”

In Washington last year, House Republicans forced a vote on a similar proposal that, needing two-thirds of the vote to pass, failed.

One Democrat who opposed it, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, told the New York Times that there’s no reason to ban sex-selection abortion because it doesn’t occur in the United States, as it does more frequently in China.

“I don’t support abortion for gender selection,” DeGette said in the Times article on the House vote. “I don’t know anyone who does. Maybe that’s because there is no problem in this country of abortion for gender selection.”

Senate Bill 56, which would make sex-selection abortion a Class 2 felony in Colorado, is likely to meet a similar fate in the Democrat-controlled state senate.